Heroes of the Storm Lost Vikings patch highlights

Today Blizzard have revived some of their oldest characters in the Nexus, after 17 years the Lost Vikings are back and better than ever, but along with them comes a multitude of fixes, changes and polish to the Heroes of the Storm beta.

Patch Highlights:

The Lost Vikings have been added to the in game roster, this set of three heroes in one is very micro intensive and brings a new way to play the game.

You can now see recent messages when in a match whenever you press enter.

The player profile has been completely reworked and now shows many stats including win/loss ratios, most played heroes and much much more.

Leaver queues are now in game, if you leave a game before it ends several times you will be placed in a leaver queue where you will only be matched against other leavers until you complete a game.

Tons of changes to many heroes including a complete rework for Raynor.

Remember with the amount of changes in this patch it is well worth reading the full patch notes or at very least the notes for your heroes you enjoy. You can read the full notes below:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

NEW HERO

The Lost Vikings, (Olaf, Baleog, and Erik) just fell through a Nexus portal and are now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of their Abilities, as well as how to control the Vikings in-game.

USER INTERFACE

General

Though Team League is not available with today’s patch, those who have achieved Player Level 40 will earn a new progression reward which indicates that they are eligible to compete in Team League. This reward will be displayed in Player Profiles, Quest Logs, and endgame Score Screens, but Team League will remain disabled until a future update is released.

In-game Communication

It is now possible to view recent in-game chat messages by opening the chat box to type a new message. Only the most recent messages will be displayed in this way. Additional improvements will arrive with future updates.

The following items have been temporarily disabled for further evaluation and improvements:

The Emote Menu (Y).

The ability to send “GG” chat messages to opponents in the moments after a Core is destroyed.

Quest Log

A new Quest Log button has been added to the lower-right portion of the bottom navigation bar, next to the Friends List button.

The Quest Log will be locked prior to earning the Daily Quests reward at Player Level 6.

Click the Quest Log button to view active Daily Quest progression, Player Level progress, as well as the next progression reward.

The Quest Log will also be automatically displayed upon each login, which should help players more easily keep track of their Daily Quest and progression reward progress.

Player Profile

The Player Profile screen has received an overhaul.

The Daily Quests tab has been removed.

The Profile Summary tab has been enabled.

Players can use this tab to view general information about their Heroes of the Storm account, such as: Recent Victory, Most Played Heroes, Total Hero Level, Ranked Play win-rates, games played with each Hero role, and much more!

The Rewards tab has been renamed to Player Progression

This tab can be used to view current Player Level, progress toward the next level, and all Player Level progression rewards.

The Hero Progress tab has been renamed to Hero Collection

Hero Progress has been visually reworked, allowing many more Heroes, their current Hero Levels, and progress toward the next level, to be displayed on each page of the Hero Collection tab.

Additionally, clicking any Hero portrait on the Hero Collection tab will bring up that Hero’s 3D model, as well as detailed information about its current Hero level and reward progress.

The Match History tab has been enabled.

Select this tab to view a list of recently played Heroes of the Storm matches.

The game mode, Hero, and Battleground selected, as well as the game’s result, and a timestamp will be displayed for each match in the list.

A Statistics tab has been added.

Players can use this tab to view additional statistics about their performance in Heroes of the Storm, such as: Heroes they’ve scored the most takedowns or received the most deaths with, total games played, and Battleground win-rates.

A Portrait tab has been added.

Portrait Selection has been moved from its previous location to this tab, making it easier than ever for players to find and choose among the portraits they’ve already earned, or simply browse through the portrait rewards they have yet to unlock.

Hover the mouse over any Portrait to display a tooltip that explains how it can be earned.

Please Note that some of the Player Profile statistics mentioned above will not contain data for games played prior to today’s patch. However, statistics for games played after the patch will be properly tracked.

Penalties for Leaving Games

The tracking and penalties for leaving in-progress Quick Match and Hero League games before they are finished have been changed:

Leaving multiple Hero League or Quick Match games without reconnecting will now flag the player to receive the following penalties:

The flagged player will be disallowed from queuing for Hero League games until a Quick Match game is played to completion.

Leaving additional games early will cause the number of Quick Match games required to increase.

When queuing for Quick Match games, the flagged player will be teamed up with other flagged players who have similarly left games early.

The system will track players’ recent games. If a player has not left any games prematurely for some time, then leaving a single game (for reasons outside of that player’s control) will not trigger these penalties.

When a player who is flagged for leaving games early joins a party, the entire party will also become subject to these penalties.

Please note that this will not causeparty members to be flagged individually. These penalties will be lifted from the party once the flagged player either completes the requirements noted above, or leaves the party.

Players penalized in this way can earn back the ability to play in Hero League, and be matched with non-leaving teammates. Simply play the assigned number of Quick Match games to completion (and stop leaving games).

Leaving a Hero League game during Draft Mode will now only penalize and flag the player who left the draft, and will no longer penalize the rest of that player’s party members.

In addition, the flagged player will still lose a significant number of Ranked Points upon leaving Draft Mode.

DESIGN AND GAMEPLAY

General

A loss of control channel bar will now appear when Heroes are Silenced (as they do with Stuns).

Murky and The Lost Vikings’ deaths are now represented in 0.25 increments on score screens, as killing Murky or one of The Lost Vikings awards 25% of the normal XP amount earned by killing another hero.